The poultry wings, especially chicken wings, are typically presented as spiced buffalo wings in the form of flats and drums. Such poultry wings or wing segments are eaten by holding the cooked wings or wing segments in the hands and eating the meat away from the bones. In order to segment the poultry wings into flats and drumettes the poultry wing must be portioned into drumette, flat, and tip.
At first, the separation of the wing segments from one another was performed by hand. For example, the poultry wing is removed from the poultry carcass by cutting the poultry carcass at the carcass shoulder joints and then cutting the poultry wings at the elbow joint between the drumette and flat, and at the tip joint between the flat and wing tip sections to produce separate poultry wing segments. Such manual poultry wing processing was expensive and time consuming. However, with the growing consumer demand for segmented poultry wings, it became desirable to automate the processing of poultry wings.
One approach is a poultry wing portioner, which after the whole wing(s) are removed from the carcass they are manually placed in a vertically rotatable wheel which has a plurality of circumferentially spaced lateral troughs therearound, in which the poultry wings are horizontally positioned and presented for being cut into drumette, flats, and tip wing. Specifically, such vertically rotatable wheel has a pair of annular slots or grooves into which cutting blades whether stationary or rotating, are positioned. With the poultry wing received in one of the circumferentially spaced lateral troughs such that the elbow joint and tip joint of such poultry wing align respectively with the two annular slots of such wheel, the poultry wing portionor may be used to draw knife blades through such slots so as to cut apart the poultry wing at the respective joints.
Another approach is a poultry wing cutting apparatus or wing portioner characterized by a rotatably mounted drum-like wing retaining member provided with a plurality of spaced wing receiving grooves extending generally in an axial direction along the outer surface of the retaining member. A plurality of axially spaced slots is provided which intersect the grooves. Knife means are provided which extend into predetermined portions of said slots and cooperative with a plurality of wing engaging members which are disposed in other preselected slots to bias said wing downwardly against each of said knife means to selectively sever the wing at desired locations. Such wing portioner may operate efficiently at 50-60 wings per minute; however, this speed is dependent on the operator's ability to load wings into the portioner.
Another approach includes a loop conveyor of poultry wing shackles and a circular saw or a conveyor that holds the carcass in an inverted attitude suspended by their legs from shackles as their torsos move between a pair of guide rods and guide rails specifically for guiding the pair of elbow joints through the disc cutters. The portioner is configured to enable a user to place poultry wings in the shackles, which are conveyed past a circular saw. The circular saw cuts the poultry wings into drumette, flats, and tip wing.
Another approach includes poultry wings suspended by their tip segments and oriented so that their outside surfaces face one side of the processing path, with right wings oriented with their elbows leading, and left wings oriented with their elbows trailing. The elbow joints are bent by a bending guide, opening the elbow joints. The open joints are cut and separated into drumettes and flats.
The problems associated with such poultry wing apparatus include the requirement to load left wing and right wing differently, the accuracy of the joint cuts is dependent on the individual sizes of the drumette, flat, and tip and also dependent upon whether the poultry wing is a right hand wing or a left hand wing. If the poultry wing(s) are incorrectly cut such cuts will produce wing segments that contain shattered or fragmented bone segments, exposed open bone areas, and/or bone marrow contamination resulting in degraded and less valuable wing segments.
Therefore, it is readily apparent that there is a recognizable unmet need for a poultry wing segmenting system and method of use that is not dependent on left wing and right wing orientation, and which can produce consistent high speed joint cuts without producing shattered or fragmented bone segments, exposed open bone areas, and/or bone marrow contamination.